Kasey Kahne, now comfortably entrenched at Hendrick Motorsports as he embarks on his second season with the NASCAR powerhouse, doesn’t consider himself a favorite to win the 2013 Sprint Cup championship for one simple reason.

“The favorites are the guys that have done it, the guys who have went through the pressure with two races left, five points separating two or three guys and lived up to that pressure and actually finished the deal,” Kahne said. “Those are the favorites.”

Kasey Kahne believes he can be a championship contender in his second season with Hendrick Motorsports. (AP Photo)

The same could have been said last year about Brad Keselowski, who won the Chase and his first Cup championship in just his third full season.

If fans want to predict who could be the Keselowski of 2013 — a driver who has shown promise and seems ready to break out and win a championship — they could look at Kahne as a prime candidate.

After a slow start in 2012, Kahne won two races last year — at two different tracks as he hoisted trophies at 1.5-mile Charlotte and 1-mile New Hampshire. He finished a career-high fourth in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

Kahne and crew chief Kenny Francis have worked together for seven of Kahne’s nine seasons in Cup and they now have had a full year getting used to how Hendrick operates.

“I’d say that we’re a team that’s capable, absolutely,” Kahne said. “But we’re by no means a favorite. I wouldn’t have thought of (Keselowski) as a favorite but I thought he was capable.”

Among those riding momentum from 2012, Kahne certainly has some. He averaged a finish of 10.4 in the final 29 races last year. He had 12 top-fives and 19 top-10s after a disastrous first six races.

The 32-year-old Kahne had not won two races in a season since 2009 and after a six-win season in 2006, he has had just seven victories.

“We had a little bit of a slow start but we got through that pretty quick,” Kahne said. “We started really figuring the system out at HMS and working with the guys. I’ve got three of the best teammates you can have as far as learning from them and working with them, trying to get better each week.

“We did a pretty decent job throughout the season. When it all came down to it, we ended up fourth and were fairly close. A couple of mistakes there in the final 10 races and (without them) we probably would have had a shot at it.”

For the first time in a long time, Kahne enters the year with the same organization, or without any turmoil surrounding recent or potential ownership changes. He went through several such changes at Gillett Evernham Motorsports/Richard Petty Motorsports before spending a season at now-defunct Red Bull Racing.

“It feels good to be somewhere and be stable and feel good about where I’m at and feel really comfortable about it,” Kahne said.

That comfort includes having Francis atop his pit box.

“We can look at each other and tell what’s going on,” Francis said. “If you listen to our radio, you don’t hear a whole lot. … We have a pretty good relationship and we’re all kind of quiet people by nature – not a lot of words, but a lot of meaning.”

The fourth-place finish in the standings was Kahne’s first top-five points finish and he was just 16 points from second — which Francis blames on bad pit strategy, which led to a 21st-place finish in the season finale at Homestead. Kahne had finished the season in the top 10 in points only once since that six-win, eighth-place year in 2006.

“My expectations are consistency, winning races and making the Chase,” Kahne said. “If you get to that point, then you have a shot for sure. It’s just how you go about those final 10 races. We’ve been right in the hunt. We’ll see what happens this year.”

Beyond feeling comfortable at Hendrick, the next step for Kahne is not just using the mechanical resources inside the shop but also learning from his Hendrick teammates. Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon have won nine championships between them, while Hendrick has won a total of 10 Cup titles.

“You have to listen in order to get better – away from the track, on the track, whatever it is, you need to listen and get better from people that have done it,” Kahne said.

“I have three of the best guys on the track and off the track I can learn from, and then we have Mr. H. (Hendrick) who is always right there.”

So could this be the year Kahne goes from solid driver with potential to sitting on the stage as the champion?

“I definitely feel like this is my best shot yet with the team, Mr. Hendrick and what he’s done for me – being prepared, having great sponsorship on the car and knowing all the people now and just kind of knowing the systems at HMS,” Kahne said.

“All that stuff will help. It’s going to be a good year. … We definitely have a shot.”